From the WSJ Opinion Archives
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Feds Released Three Plotters in June
Three men now suspected in last Tuesday's terrorists attacks were detained by
federal authorities in New York in June after being observed snapping reconnaissance
photos of federal office buildings and courthouses in downtown New York City,
the New York Post reports. The men were questioned and released, apparently
before detailed background checks on them were completed.
Israel Warned Us
London's Telegraph reports that "two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli
military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the
CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to
be preparing a big operation." The Israelis warned of imminent "large-scale
terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland,"
the Telegraph says. The British paper quotes "a senior Israeli security
official" who says, "They had no specific information about what was being
planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there
were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement."
Attack
on the European Parliament?
According to another Telegraph report, bin Laden followers planned back in February
to attack the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France: "A six-strong
terror cell funded by the Saudi fugitive planned to kill all 625 Euro-MPs, and
scores of officials, by releasing sarin gas into the parliament building."
A series of raids by German police foiled the operation.
Did
We Miss the Chance to Kill Him?
"The United States for years has had both the knowledge and capability
necessary to kill exiled Saudi militant leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan,
but repeatedly declined to act, angry U.S. intelligence officials and military
special operations soldiers said last week," the Philadelphia Inquirer
reports. The sources tell the paper that "authorization fell victim to
White House concerns about reactions to such a raid from Arab nations and a
general reluctance to place American commandos in harm's way." Sandy Berger,
who served as President Clinton's national security adviser, denies the report.
The Thunder
of Incitement
The Middle East Media Research Institute reports that columnist Mahmoud Abd
Al-Mun'im Murad of the Egyptian government-sponsored daily Al-Akhbar wrote on
August 28, "The Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor, must be destroyed
because of following the idiotic American policy that goes from disgrace to
disgrace in the swamp of bias and blind fanaticism." He further announced that
"the age of the American collapse has begun."
Three weeks ago, reports the Jerusalem Post, the Yasser Arafat-appointed mufti in Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, gave a sermon in which, the Post says, "he allegedly said that the White House will turn black, with God's help, and that America, England and Israel should be destroyed."
'It's Going
to Be Decisive'
Newsweek's Howard Fineman describes a meeting President Bush had last week with
the four senators whose states were the sites of last week's atrocities, Democrats
Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton of New York and Republicans John Warner and
George Allen of Virginia:
They all got more than they bargained for. The meeting didn't last minutes, but half an hour. The president, relaxed and in control, drew Sen. Hillary Clinton into a warm, familial exchange. He treated Sen. Charles Schumer like a long-lost fraternity brother. As for their aid request, "I'm with ya," the president said eagerly--and it was approved by Congress the next day. The Virginians got promises of aid, too, and the warlike words all four senators yearned for. "When I take action," he said, "I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive."
The
Ugly American
As Americans we can all take pride in the way our country has come together
in this time of crisis. But it is to America's shame that some of our countrymen
have responded by lashing out at immigrants and fellow Americans. In Mesa, Ariz.,
a gas-station owner, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was shot to death Saturday, apparently
by a hothead who thought his victim was Muslim. (He was in fact a Sikh.) Shots
were fired shortly after at two other locations, including an Arab-owned gas
station. Rediff.com
reports police have arrested 42-year-old Frank Roque, who reportedly shouted,
"I stand for America," as he was arrested.
Rediff also reports a Pakistani businessman, Waquar Hasan, was shot to death yesterday in Dallas, "the second South Asian to be killed in what appear to be hate crimes in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon."
We must stress that these are isolated incidents, though there have also been scattered reports of South Asians and Arab-Americans being harassed, windows broken in mosques, and so forth. President Bush and the nation's other leaders have, to their great credit, stressed that it is wrong to blame innocent immigrants for the actions of the evil fanatics who attacked America last week. Today, in fact, Bush plans to visit a Muslim community center to show common cause with his fellow Americans. What a contrast from 1941, when within weeks of Pearl Harbor the government began rounding up Japanese-Americans and sending them to camps. In many ways we are a better country than we were 60 years ago.
We hope the perpetrators of the Arizona and Texas attacks will be punished severely for their crimes. Last week's atrocity is horrifying and frustrating to all of us, but those who respond with violence here at home are as unpatriotic as the Moores and the Fallwells who've responded to this atrocity by trying to divide America. All are, in effect, making common cause with our enemies.
Three Cheers for Andrew Sullivan
We've often disagreed with Andrew Sullivan, about things that seem wholly unimportant
now, but we must applaud him for writing some of the most beautifully written
articles we've seen over the past week. We particularly like his piece from
yesterday's Sunday
Times of London. It's worth reading in its entirety, but we'll single out
a passage we particularly like (it appears on the second
page):
The middle part of the country--the great red zone that voted for Bush--is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead--and may well mount a fifth column.
But by striking at the heart of New York City, the terrorists ensured that at least one deep segment of the country ill-disposed towards a new president is now the most passionate in his defence. Anyone who has ever tried to get one over on a New Yorker knows what I mean. The demons who started this have no idea about the kind of people they have taken on.
What a contrast to the despicable Michael Moore, whose reaction on Wednesday was to wish the terrorists had killed more Republicans. (Moore has at least had the good taste to edit these comments out of his original article, but you can read them here.)
Sullivan also has a piece in next Sunday's New York Times magazine (link requires registration), which the Times posted to the Web over the weekend.
Dispatch
From Barbara Lee's District
We hate to say it, but when California's Rep. Barbara Lee cast the lone dissenting
vote against last week's resolution approving the use of force against America's
enemies, she may have just been reflecting the views of her constituents. The
Alameda Times-Star sends a pair of reporters out to local high schools and gathers
a series of disgustingly smug quotes:
- "It didn't happen in Oakland, it could have but it didn't, so I don't feel scared or nothing. Why should I go fight in a war and die for nothing." -- Hieu Le, 15, Castlemont High School
- "I'm not risking my life for that, I love myself too much. If they came after me I would have to run." -- Amir Kellogg, 17
- "How are you going to defend a nation if that nation can't defend against things like homelessness? I'm not in a rush to help our country because our country is already messed up." -- Jamaal Germaine, 15, McClymonds High School
- "I think the United States deserves it. It's pretty sad for the poor people, but the United States does the same thing. We're probably going to do the same thing after this. We're not going to send anybody into the country, we're just going to bomb them like they did us." -- Patrick Rizzo, Berkeley High School
Berkeley High, you may remember, is the school that banned military recruiters from campus. "I felt it wasn't appropriate to have weapons simulators on the high school campus given all the violence at schools recently," Berkeley school board member Joaquin Rivera said at the time.
'Ballsy'
One Cara DeGette, a columnist for the Colorado Springs Independent and sister
of Rep. Diana DeGette,
praises the hijackers as "ballsy" and favorably cites "noted
dissident Noam Chomsky," who has accused the U.S. of "international
terrorism."
Chomsky is an MIT linguist who is regularly showered with honorary degrees from places like Columbia University. Here's his take: "The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much worse cases, which easily come to mind."
This sort of moral equivalence can be found on the right as well as the left. Writes Jude Wanniski in an open letter to House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt:
Before we bomb anything, we should first be sure we are not blowing up aspirin factories or schools or hospitals. We should never have bombed countries with whom we have diplomatic relations. It is because of this bipartisanship that our press corps has been corrupted, to the point where it has become blind to the evil acts we commit as a nation. Our people have no idea why last Tuesday happened because they have never been told of the bipartisan injustices we commit. . . .
Scrap this kind of mindless bipartisanship and debate the reasons the suicide bombers had to give up their lives. They were not religious fanatics. They were "Muslim McVeighs." And if you decide not to take the trouble, you can bet there will be more of them on the way.
A Reverse
Cassandra
Greek mythology has given us the useful English term Cassandra--someone whose warnings of misfortune are disregarded. We've always thought
there ought to be a similar term for the people who, before a disaster, urge
that warnings be disregarded, even though the warnings are true. Maybe such
a person could be called a Krouzman, after Roni Krouzman, a "free-lance
writer and social activist" who last year wrote an article on
the left-wing
Web site TomPaine.com under the headline, "The Terrorism Scare: Hype or
Reality?" The article said:
The mainstream media's treatment of terrorism on the eve of the new millennium is indicative of the way it has covered the issue since the end of the Cold War. The hype is unfounded, largely because there is no evidence of a world wide terrorist conspiracy against the U.S., and the few alleged terrorists that have actively targeted U.S. citizens have done so infrequently.
Krouzman also wrote, "The actions of business executives--from tobacco sellers to weapons manufacturers--claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year--38,505 gun-related deaths in 1994, 6,112 workplace fatalities and 500,000 deaths from smoking in 1996--many times more than the handful of terrorist incidents. These are the people we should be afraid of, and seek to restrain, rather than fictional characters that have more to do with Hollywood hype than political reality."
Another Krouzman is Mary Anne Weaver, who wrote last year in The New Yorker: "In fact, bin Laden very likely sees his battle with the House of Saud as his most important struggle; from his perspective, the United States is of secondary concern." The article bemoaned "America's obsession with one man."
Yesterday we noted a July New York Times op-ed by Larry Johnson, an erstwhile State Department counterterrorism specialist. Reader Tom Jackson points out that more than a year earlier--on June 15, 2000--The Wall Street Journal published an article by Johnson and Milt Bearden, an ex-CIA man, titled "Don't Exaggerate the Terrorist Threat." "On average, more Americans have died annually over the last five years from venomous snake or scorpion bites than at the hands of international terrorists," Bearden and Johnson wrote.
Banner
Banners--II
Boca Raton, Fla.-based NCCI
Holdings Inc., which compiles workman's compensation data, last week "had
its managers confiscate some American flags from employees' cubicles, saying
other workers might find them offensive," reports the Palm Beach Post.
"Divisive statements or actions, political or religious discussions and anything else that could be divisive or mean different things to different people are not appropriate in our work environment," CEO Bill Schrempf said Friday in a memo to employees.
Adds the Post: "Several employees complained about the flag prohibition. One employee said she was suspended and told to go home Friday morning when she refused to remove a small flag from her desk. The company refused to confirm whether it had asked any employees to leave."
NCCI has now apologized, issuing a press release saying the company handed out flags and patriotic lapels to employees as they came to work today.
Good news, too, from Lehigh University, where vice provost John Smeaton has issued an apology for briefly ordering the flag off campus buses:
On Thursday afternoon, I received a telephone call expressing concern over a flag placed inside a student shuttle bus. In a momentary lapse of judgment, which I deeply regret, I suggested the flag should be removed from the inside of the bus.
About an hour later, when I had time to reflect on that request, I realized that my decision was absolutely wrong. I immediately asked that the flag be returned. . . .
I made a mistake. It is one that I deeply regret and for which I can only apologize. I wish with all my heart that I could return to that moment, but I cannot. All I can do is accept responsibility for my error and ask, if not for your understanding, at least for your forgiveness.
We forgive you, Mr. Smeaton.
'C'mon, Guys, Let's Roll'
Last week we saluted
to Jeremy Glick, one of the passengers who resisted the hijackers on Flight
93, causing it to crash into a field near Pittsburgh and saving whatever target
the terrorists had in mind. Here are two more stories about Glick's fellow heroes:
Forbes's RiShawn Biddle on Thomas
Burnett and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Todd
Beamer. The Post-Gazette reports a telephone operator was still on the line
with the plane when she heard Beamer say: "Are you guys ready? Let's roll!":
"That's Todd," his wife, Lisa, said . . . of the "Let's roll!" command. . . . "My boys even say that. When we're getting ready to go somewhere, we say, 'C'mon guys, let's roll.' My little one says, 'C'mon, Mom, let's roll.' That's something they picked up from Todd."
Our Brian Carney also paid tribute to these brave men over the weekend.
(Ira Stoll helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to C.E. Dobkin, Michael Paranzino, Rosslyn Smith, David Wyand, Dave Harvey, Greg Hartman, Damon Kirschbaum, Michael Dirmeier, Jim Orheim, Janine Wenzig and the 15 readers who wrote us about the NCCI Holdings story. If you have a tip for Best of the Web Today, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
